About Tagalog

by Pisith Phlong

Number of speakers
Tagalog (also called Pilipino or Filipino) is one of the two official languages of the Philippines. It is spoken as the first language by approximately 21 million people and as a second or third language by almost the total population of 76.5 million of the Philippines. (Brown, Vol. 9, p. 323)

Language group
Among over a hundred languages spoken in the Philippines, Tagalog is one of the most spoken languages in the country. It belongs to the Western Malayo-Polynesian group of the Austronesian language family. (Strazny, p. 1074)

History of written language and script
Tagalog is one of the older languages in the region. Based on archaeological evidence, the Austronesian speakers might have arrived in the North Philippines from Taiwan at least 4,500 years ago, and from there dispersed into a number of languages and ethnic groups. (Strazny, p. 1074) For this reason, as many as 170 different indigenous languages are spoken in the Philippines, and most of them belong to the Western branch of the Austronesian language family. (Brown, Vol. 9, p. 323) Early Tagalog writing scripts appeared in pictograph form where sounds were based on different sounds heard in nature. (Cervo, p. 1) However, the old written forms of Tagalog disappeared soon after Spain took control of the Philippines in the 16th century and introduced the Roman script. Some languages that have influenced Tagalog are Sanskrit, Chinese, Spanish and English. (Blake, p. 1)

Language
Tagalog is currently the most widely spoken language in the Philippines as well as being a national language alongside with English. Many original words of Tagalog base their pronunciation on sounds found in nature. A number of words were also borrowed from Sanskrit before the 16th century, and many Spanish words came into use during Spain’s control from the 16th century to 1898. English vocabulary entered the language during the period of US control from 1898 to 1946. (Herbert, p. 153-154) It was in 1935 that the Tagalog-based Pilipino or Filipino was selected as the official language of the Philippines from among the three most spoken languages, Cebuano, Tagalog and Ilocano. By 1973, English was also proclaimed as the co-official language with Tagalog. (Brown, Vol. 9, p. 325) In the period between independence after World War II and the mid-1970’s, the number of speakers of Tagalog was less than the Cebuano speakers. The 1975 census showed that 21% of the population spoke Tagalog as compared to 24.1% that spoke Cebuano (Herbert, p. 155) Now, Tagalog is becoming the lingua franca at the expense of other indigenous languages, especially in Mindanao, and throughout the Cebuano speaking area, because more native speakers of indigenous languages have begun to learn Tagalog as a second language. (Brown, Vol. 2, p. 270) Affix plays a very important role in Tagalog; it makes Tagalog a language of full expression, including tenses and causations. (Brown, Vol. 12, p. 474)

Scripts
There were some records of written Tagalog before the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century. However, only a few of them have survived until the present. The early Tagalog alphabets were picture-based single syllables where each syllable represented sound and a complex meaning. (Cervo, p. 10) During the Spanish colonial period in the 16th century, Roman alphabets were introduced to write Tagalog, eventually completely replacing the old script. The present system of written Tagalog uses a combination of 20 Roman letters. Verbs are usually attached with an affix to indicate their semantic role in the sentence. (Frawley, p. 200)

Other Dialects
The Philippines is a country of over 7,000 islands with over 170 indigenous languages. A variety of Tagalog dialects are spoken in many different regions in the Philippines such as in Battan, Batangas, Bulacan, Manila, Tanay-Paete and Tayabas. The Tagalog dialect of Manila is considered to the standard for the national language. (Frawley, p. 199) Of the 170 languages of the Austronesian language family, including Tagalog, some major languages are Cebuano, Ilocano, Hiligaynon (or Ilonggo), Bikol, Waray-Waray, Kapampangan, Pangasinan, Maranao, Maguindanao and Kinaray-a. The non-Austronesian language, Spanish, is spoken in Mindanao, Luzon, Davao, Ternate and Zamoangueño, and it is classified into four main dialects, Caviteño, Davao Chavacaño, Ternateño and Zamoangueño. (Brown, Vol.9, p. 323)

Comparison to Western languages
There are a number of loanwords in Tagalog, especially from Spanish and English. The sentence structure is Subject-Verb-Object, and there is no inflection between adjective and noun regarding gender and number, except for a few special pronouns (Frawley, p. 202). The transformation of different parts of speech into verb is acceptable in Tagalog, and affixes are very common among verbs to make the sentence full of expression. (Blake, p. 2)

References

• Blake, F. R. A grammar of the Tagalog Language. American Oriental Society: Connecticut, 1967.
• Brown, K. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Vol. 2. (2nd ed.). Elsevier: Oxford, 2006.
• Brown, K. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Vol. 9. (2nd ed.). Elsevier: Oxford, 2006.
• Brown, K. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Vol. 12. (2nd ed.). Elsevier: Oxford, 2006.
• Cervo, N. I. Another Look at Tagalog. Manlapaz Publishing Co.: Quezon City, 1978.
• Frawley, W. J. International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Vol. 4. (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
• Herbert, P. and Milner, A. Southeast Asia, Languages and Literatures. University of Hawaii Press: Honolulu, 1989.
• Strazny, P. Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Vol. 2. New York: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2005.
• Soverano, R. The Dialects of Marinduque Tagalog. Pacific Linguistic (Series B, No. 69). The Australian National University, 1980.